Expanding on his criticism of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Martin Scorsese has said while these films were made by people of considerable talent and artistry, there is an absence of “revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger” in them.
In a New York Times Op-ed, Scorsese clarified on the controversy over his earlier remarks about superhero films, and referring to them as “theme park experience” and “not cinema.”
In the article titled I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain, Scorsese wrote, “Many franchise films are made by people of considerable talent and artistry. You can see it on the screen. The fact that the films themselves don’t interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament.”
“I know that if I were younger, if I’d come of age at a later time, I might have been excited by these pictures and maybe even wanted to make one myself. But I grew up when I did and I developed a sense of movies ‘of what they were and what they could be’ that was as far from the Marvel universe as we on Earth are from Alpha Centauri.”
Scorsese wrote about the directors who influenced his filmmaking style, and argued how they influenced him and his contemporaries to make movies that were about aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation.
Scorsese wrote the MCU films are everything the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, Claire Denis, Spike Lee, Ari Aster, Kathryn Bigelow or Wes Anderson are not. “When I watch a movie by any of those filmmakers, I know I’m going to see something absolutely new and be taken to unexpected and maybe even unnameable areas of experience.” Where Marvel lacked was there was “nothing at risk” in its movies, he argued.
“Many of the elements that define cinema as I know it are there in Marvel pictures. What’s not there is revelation, mystery or genuine emotional danger. Nothing is at risk. The pictures are made to satisfy a specific set of demands, and they are designed as variations on a finite number of themes.”
Scorsese took the case of the commodification of cinema at the hands of big studios like Marvel, saying their films were “sequels in name but they are remakes in spirit,” adding, “and everything in them is officially sanctioned because it can’t really be any other way. That’s the nature of modern film franchises: market-researched, audience-tested, vetted, modified, revetted and remodified until they’re ready for consumption.”
He called “the gradual but steady elimination of risk” as the most ominous change that has happened stealthily. Franchise films were the primary choice for a big-screen experience and the space for indie films was shrinking.
The equation has flipped and streaming has become the primary delivery system, Scorsese wrote, adding he was speaking as someone who just completed highly anticipated The Irishman for Netflix.
“(Netflix) and it alone, allowed us to make The Irishman the way we needed to, and for that, I’ll always be thankful. We have a theatrical window, which is great. Would I like the picture to play on more big screens for longer periods of time? Of course, I would. But no matter whom you make your movie with, the fact is that the screens in most multiplexes are crowded with franchise pictures.” He further refused to agree that it was a matter of supply and demand, dubbing it the “chicken-and-egg issue.”
